Todd Richert

So I know there is no official upgrade policy (well there is and its that there are no upgrades regardless of medallion).

I'm not willing to spend 60,000 miles for an upgrade (are they really that crazy? Someone out there will pay that?)

My flight is this coming Friday (checkin is 4 days from now) and business class as 16 of 32 seats open. How does Delta plan on filling those? Maybe 2-4 get purchased by then leaving 12-14 seats open that they wont sell me or let me upgrade to (for a non insane price).

davetravels

They will either fill those seats with Diamonds - ONLY THOSE - who are using Global Upgrade Certificates, and their companions. Then <in theory> after they're all upgraded, they'll seat employee non-revs and their companions, etc, in those seats.

SDQBound

You are not willing to spend 60,000 miles for an upgrade... Delta is not willing to sell a premium cabin seat for a cheap price (are they really crazy?). Upgrade offers are very rare and only seem to happen when Economy is oversold.

Enjoy your seat in Economy^

BenA

60,000 miles is about $600 in value; this is about industry standard for a one way business class upgrade to a lieflat seat. KLM sells upgrades from the lowest economy fares for €450 + 25,000 miles, for example, and many other carriers set PlusGrade bidding thresholds in this general area. Delta's cash offers at checkin are usually in the $800 range, actually.

It's more a highlight that business class award redemptions are a much greater value - at 60-80k miles one way, that's how I prefer to spend my mileage.

Delta wants people who value business class to pay for seats, and believes that upgrade availability at attractive prices will cause those people to instead book coach and gamble on availability. I question that somewhat - KLM's day of departure upgrade policy seems to work well for them, even on the ex-AMS DL flights it applies to. But it's not an irrational strategy and I can at least understand what they are going for.

If upgrades were in the 30-40k range one way from lower Y fares, I'd spring for them on every flight...

Bowgie

60,000 miles *is* an insane price. BenA mentions that's worth $600. That's true for pay-with-miles, but I have no trouble getting 2 cents and better in value for Skymiles. $1200 for an upgrade is nuts just like the OP says.

To answer OP's specific question, the unsold DeltaOne seats will go to any non-rev's who want them. It's part of their compensation package. To Delta, it's just money in another form. It doesn't bother me or have anything to do with me as a Delta customer.

At the end of the day, Delta is perfectly fine with DeltaOne seats going out empty to protect their perceived exclusivity.

KDCAflyer

It's supply and demand. Lots of people want a cheap D1 upgrade on DOD, so the price is therefore high. There is little reason for DL to make upgrades cheap, since it might reduce the motivation to buy a D1 ticket at booking.

Just be glad that DL isn't charging 100K miles or something for the upgrade. It's a take it or leave it sort of thing. They already have your money for the economy ticket, so paying that price is the only option if you want to upgrade w/o paying fare difference.

Frogbone

I have gotten several upgrades as Platinum. MSP-AMS and AMS-MSP exclusively.

tanglin

You would probably only have got this because they oversold the back. I’ve only had it once as a Plat, MAN-ATL (pre-VS).

LondonElite

Why would they need to fill those 16 seats?

DCAproducer

You're getting an OpUp or you're using miles. For an operational upgrade Y was likely oversold and they needed your Y seat.

I'm all for Delta protecting D1 and making it cost $ or miles for those seats. I fly in D1 several times a year and I pay for all of those seats because I want the lie flat seat and no one reclining in my face.

I've also seen FA's tell non-revs in D1 they will take their meal orders last to ensure the paying passengers get first choice. Another thing I agree with.

alltforsverige

I got really lucky as a Gold coming back AMS-MSP 2.5 years ago. My wife (Silver at the time, I believe) and I were on the same PNR. Her boarding pass beeped at the gate scan and I got a big smile on my face as did the gate agent. She was confused and a little frustrated when the agent told her we weren't going to have our assigned seats, which were probably Economy Comfort or Comfort+ or whatever they were calling it at the time.

Coach was way oversold and somehow there were still two seats in front left by the time they'd gone all the way down to our PNR.

I had a very happy wife once we turned left upon boarding

manacit

DL is fine letting D1 seats go out if people haven't paid for them. As others have said, they would have a much harder time getting people to pay for them in the first place if they made upgrading easy.

I flew LAX-JFK a few days after Christmas last year in a 752 that had only 3 pax including myself up front, and a full Y cabin. I am sure there were PMs and DMs in the back of the bus, but they chose to let it go out with almost every seat empty.

Xeno

Did did not stipulate your destination, but depending on the time of year and location some pay $3-7K or more to fly D1. This appears to be common knowledge that you have missed.

3Cforme

Yep.

Delta can:

• Sell seats to last-minute travelers, the likes of which may walk up to an assistant and say 'I need to be in Munich day after tomorrow'
• Open upgrade inventory for people using miles
• Open GUC inventory/clear GUCs up to time of departure
• Give seats to non-revs
• Fly those seats empty

Delta's big data initiatives mean they're refining pricing and availability all the time, and specifically looking at behaviors of each traveler. The OP is cheap. That's fine - so long as he expects to ride in coach.

LonghaulCommuter

Delta sells those seats for thousands of dollars (sometimes over $10K RT). Companies and individuals who pay that will be very unhappy if Delta sells those seats cheap--and trust me, people who slip in on Op-Ups talk loudly about the free upgrade (paid J folks understand Delta needs to do that sometimes that when they're oversold). To some, it seems to make little sense to give those seats away to DMs with GUCs when they could easily make extra few hundred dollars to sell a seat last minute to anyone. However, many of those DMs are the same people who fly J on their company's dime for work and it probably won't irk paid J flyers if Delta rewards their most loyal flyers with leftover D1 seats. Thus, to preserve their business model of VERY expensive D1 fares, they must keep seats empty sometimes.

I get offers to cheap D1 upgrades at check in sometimes but only when it is obvious that they oversold economy and will need to Op-Up some people otherwise.